Things to know about – electric vehicle battery

Things to know about – electric vehicle battery

The main element of an electric vehicle is the battery; it’s the most important and expensive part of your EV.  Making sure your battery is in good condition and is properly taken care of will benefit you and your electric vehicle by ensuring the best performance during its useful lifetime. Taking care of an EV is quite different from taking care of a traditional ICE-powered vehicle and requires a different set of habits to make sure that your battery is optimized for performance.

In this article, we will give you tips and advice so that you can get the most out of your electric vehicle and obtain the best performance by finding all the crucial information regarding battery upkeep, charge management, and warranty.

Having good maintenance of your EV’s battery

A lithium-ion battery experiences natural aging and wear, just like other batteries do. Its capacity and health can be preserved with the right use of it. Therefore, pay attention to the advice the automaker provides below to guarantee that your electric vehicle keeps both its value and range capacity over time. This, of course, means that making sure you get at least yearly maintenance checks on your EV battery and installing any potential software or physical updates as they roll out is important to make sure that your EV is always in the most optimized condition for performance.

3 KEY tips for electric vehicle battery maintenance

Your high-voltage battery can be cared for easily. You’ve already completed the most crucial tasks if you simply adhere to the three golden principles listed below to take the best care of your electric vehicle.

1. When using your vehicle everyday, it is best to not fully charge your EV as there are chemical causes to battery where at the conductive points when the battery is fully saturated. Therefore, charging to around 80% and leaving an uncharged amount is best for your battery life. However, if you are planning for a long-distance journey, you might want to charge it to its full capacity, but you should never let it sit charging when its already at 100% as this kind of practice can cause battery wear, performance decreases and max charging level decreases.
2. If the car won’t be used for more than 12 hours, park it with the battery at least 30% but no more than 80% charged (e.g., at the airport before a trip). This is to ensure the battery doesn’t stay at a too low level and similarly, leaving it above 80% can cause for energy depletion and performance decreases.
3. Avoid routine fast charging with direct current if possible. Although convenient for road trips, DC charging puts more strain on the lithium-ion high-voltage battery than AC charging does. The high-voltage battery’s capacity can be permanently reduced by frequent quick charging. High levels of strain from direct current high-voltage charging affects the wear of the batteries anodes and cathodes that wear out quicker at higher voltages.

As always, Carnex can provide you with detailed information about buying and maintenance electric vehicles in Canada.

Carnex is the top online EV expert in Canada for buying and selling used EVs.

Charging settings

To help ensure the longevity of your electric vehicle battery, we advise using clever charge management. Every adventure starts with a fully charged family vehicle. The infotainment system makes it simple to correctly manage the high-voltage battery, whether you want to set battery charge limits, select charge locations, or decide between instant and delayed charging. This will allow your battery to perform better and last much longer with the use it receives.

Battery warranty

A lithium-ion battery’s performance and lifespan are also influenced by environmental variables such as the weather. The high-voltage battery is guaranteed against material and workmanship flaws that result in a net capacity reduction below 70% for a period of eight years or 160,000 kilometers (whichever comes first). This gives you assurance for the future and demonstrates the significance of sustainable mobility. In this case, having access to your battery warranty when a problem arises is very useful to help you get the support and repairs needed to fix the problem and repair whatever issues you may have on your EV during normal use.

Winter care

It’s critical to look for a used electric vehicle with a long battery life to save money on future repairs as well as to avoid the constant need for charging due to the harsh winter conditions that can degrade the car’s performance to the point where it cannot complete its job. Used electric cars prefer mild weather. In bitterly cold weather below -25 °C, battery range can drop by as much as 40% to 50%. You should keep that in mind whenever you get behind the wheel and when shopping for a used EV.

Therefore, you might want to consider making an underground parking purchase or making room in your garage for the cold winter nights. Rapid charging generates a lot of heat, which can also damage your batteries. A good rule of thumb to maintain proper battery condition is too train and maintain the battery at around 10-40 degrees Celsius.

Lastly, driving an EV in the Canadian winter requires some climate-specific maintenance, as batteries and the EV usually require additional steps of conditioning to allow for proper usage and quality over a long period of time. Power and battery output are the major obstacles to using EVs in cold weather.

Summer care

Try to charge your electric vehicle battery in the shade or on a cloudier or cooler day, if possible. This is since prolonged exposure to the sun while your EV battery is charged might harm it over time. An unhealthy EV battery may result from a battery that cannot store energy effectively due to overheating. This is essential if you park your vehicle in a non-air-conditioned parking lot or in a hot and enclosed environment, as the battery is not made to resist very humid and hot temperatures or the hot sun.

Speed and Performance

It is recommended to never go too fast when driving inside your EV. Driving over the speed limit is never a good idea, but EV drivers traveling long distances should keep their speedometer at or near 100 kph. The more power you require to maintain your pace from the battery, the quicker you must travel. Also, having a consistent high power draw from your battery may cause overuse damage and eventual battery performance issues.

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